Andyshades & Us

This is an archive of the band profile for Andyshades & Us.

Andyshades has been writing songs since 1982 and performing live since 1986 and is on a mission from God. He is a travelling singer/songwriter who plays and records with many diverse global musicians. After many years of being in bands with constantly changing line-ups and difficult internal politics he looked for a new direction and took to the road. There he found himself mingling with an array of international talent throughout Asia, Australia, Europe and Canada.

Us is the most obvious name given to this loose collective of contributors, some of whom are permanent and local, others incidental and transient. All musical input is done on a free creative basis without the trappings of contracts and schedules. This has greatly enhanced and heightened both inspiration and creativity. Recordings have evolved along Andy’s travels culminating in CDs that have their roots in many places and among people who may never meet. Some CDs are recorded live and spontaneously, others have been years in the making.

The music has soul-searching melodies with progressive psychedelic overtones and biting rhythms. Lyrics are conscious, political, spiritual and satirical. It does not fit into any genretically-manipulated box. Most recent recordings have been focussing on current political and spiritual world issues of a waking population and the fine line between their dreams and the stark realities of the modern world.

Because of the international nature of the input, and the fact that each individual is given free range to imprint their own style and character on the songs, it is difficult to say where all the influences come from. Andyshades’ influences are most strongly from Roy Harper, Lou Reed, Caravan, King Crimson, Gong, Spirit, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Van Morrison and The Doors. Except for 3 months of repeatedly listening to all the albums of ‘Belle and Sebastian’, Andy now listens to far too many partial playbacks of CDs in progress in his attic studio.

In most recent years Andyshades has played gigs, festivals and helped create events in Thailand, Laos, Australia and Germany where he was based in Berlin for 2 years. He has spent the last 3 summers managing, engineering and playing on open stages at UK festivals including Glastonbury, Big Green Gathering, Shambala, Small World and Turayah among others. He has played alongside many talented and seasoned festival musicians and has supported acts such as Nick Harper, Arthur Brown and Jon Gomm among others.